Since moving into my house less than a year ago I have bought 3 Hand Hoe’s as follows:

Faithfull Faichhoe Cultivator (May 2015)

Wolf Garten Double Hoe (Jul 2015)

Bahco Garden Hoe (Sep 2015)

All of these Hoes/cultivators cost less than £10. These all have a sharp edge which is great for cutting through tough soil which hasn’t been touched for years. For instance if your turning soil up in a confined area near a tree or fence, where you are unable to use a large garden folk or spade, then these little hand Hoe’s are invaluable.

Faithfull Faichhoe Cultivator (May 2015)

The Faithfull Faichhoe Cultivator was the first item of this type I purchased and I loved using this tool as it made breaking up the hard soil so much easier than trying to use a hand trowel. However, I think the hard stone ridden soil was too much for the Faithfull tool and it subsequently bent and distorted and I binned it after a few months as it was no longer very effective. Sorry I never took a picture before binning it!

2. Wolf Garten Double Hoe (Jul 2015)

The Wolf Garten Double Hoe was the second tool of this type I purchased.Again it performed excellent when I first purchased the tool, but again after a few months use it has bent out of shape, rusted and the sharp edge is pretty blunt and warped after hitting one too many stones and bramble roots. I think this tool would perform great on previously prepared garden beds, but they have struggled to withstand the test of time on my old neglected garden. They have aided me immensely in digging up Bramble roots though and would recommend these types of tools to other gardeners or allotment gardeners …however I don’t think the wolf garten is the strongest for tough plots. One big dislike is the ridged end of the hand…as a gardener I think this is a bad design as soil gets wedged into the handle grooves making it difficult to keep it clean.

3. Bahco Garden Hoe (Sep 2015)

The third and last tool of this type I bought was the Bahco, this is my first and only tool purchased from this French company. I had never heard of the company, but bought the tool as it looked tough and I thought it might perform better than the previous 2 Hoe’s. When it arrived my Husband told me Bahco was a famous power-tool manufacturer, so that was reassuring and I had high hopes for this tool. Unlike the previous 2 tools I have reviewed, this was only a single hoe, however the steel/metal does feel thicker and sturdier and less likely to bend.So far the tool has performed well. The edge isn’t has sharp as it was, again it has been used on my tough garden. however it has shown no signs of bending or rusting so I am pleased with this product and would buy other Bahco products again. I have seen some other interesting Hoe designs they do and would be interested in trying these out.

I bought my new house with garden last May/June 2015 and bought a huge selection of tools from a range of famous gardening brands. I did some research and bought the larger items mainly from Bulldog and Chillington. However I couldn’t really see a big difference between the hand tools so bought these from a range of companies. 1 year on I have binned a number of items which have been damaged or broke, accidentally put some in the green bin and then these are what I have left below, so I thought I would review the performance of these tools over the last year since I bought the house and garden.

Hand tools

I should state that the garden hadn’t been touched for 20 years and different parts of the garden have different soil types, some parts are sandy, some are hard clay and others are normal. The area had previously been used to mine sand, so obviously the garden is very sandy and has a ridiculous number or pebbles everywhere, so everytime I dig I always hit a pebble or two! The garden also contained a lot of buried concrete and rubble! An annoying amount. In addition the garden was completely overtaken by brambles, I must of progressively dug up over 200 brambles root balls and filled a skip and made endless trips to the tip….so as you can imagine my hand tools have been put through a lot! They have either hit pebbles, concrete or thick tough bramble root balls! Hence some of the tools haven’t withstood the test of time. I have dug up bin fulls of pebbles and boulders that I have now decided to make a dry river in order to use them and make a feature out of them 😀

Over the next few weeks I will be doing an in depth reviews of the different gardening tools as follows, so watch this space: